BATON ROUGE - When a man's house plans were questioned by the city, he started taking a closer look at what he signed up for. That's when Mark Amar tells 2 On Your Side that the person who he had been working with was not what he said he was.

"I felt betrayed because he's not actually what he's claiming to be," said Amar.

Several years ago, Amar and his wife purchased some land near Baker and intended to build their new family home.

"It was supposed to be me and my wife's dream home," said Amar.

They shopped for an architect and Amar said they found Jeremiah Bell on Facebook. He had posted several pictures and videos of his prior work and the Amars took interest. Bell's social media recognizes business names as 3JMS Design Services and Vision Design Studio, LLC.

"He gave us a price we couldn't refuse," he said.

The plans were for a six-bedroom, six-bathroom, 7,000 square foot house. The couple sat on the plans for a while and recently took them to the city to get them approved. That's when he had some trouble. Amar returned to Bell and was assured the city's questions would be addressed but the plans were denied a second time. Amar says he was asked for more money to complete the changes.

"He was telling me I needed to give him $500 extra for an engineer," said Amar.

It was a red flag for Amar. That's when he learned that Bell is not an architect but a designer. Online, Bell markets himself as an "architectural designer." Bell spoke with 2 On Your Side over the phone.

"I'm not an architect, but I'm an architectural designer," said Bell.

For 22 years, Bell says he has been working as an architectural designer and has designed over 200 houses. Bell says he is upfront with his clients. In a copy of his contract provided to WBRZ, it says "If an engineer or architectural stamp is needed during permitting, the customer will be billed $500."

"I'm not pretending to be an architect, if you are an architectural designer you do the work, you get it approved by a licensed architect or an engineer," said Bell.

The Louisiana State Board of Architectural Examiners has investigated Bell before and found that he had used someone's architect's seal without their permission. The Louisiana law says no person shall practice architecture in this state or use the title "architect" or any term derived therefrom without a license. Exemptions to the law include persons acting as designers for single-family residences up to 4,000 square feet.

Bell has never been a licensed architect in the state of Louisiana.

"I'm a designer, I design homes and small commercial buildings," said Bell.

Amar says the process should be much easier. Now he's behind schedule building because he's scraped Bell's plans and has hired someone else - an architect - to design his dream home.

"He's going to continue until somebody puts a stop to it," said Amar.

The Louisiana State Board of Architectural Examiners says it has received several complaints about Bell recently and currently has an open investigation into one of those complaints. In a separate case, Bell is listed as a defendant in a lawsuit filed late last year.